Kids facing off across the chess boards

Elementary school students face off across the chess board
By Magdelene Perez

The first player plunked down a pawn with a thump. Though her feet, snug in sneakers, couldn’t even reach the floor, her style was fast and decisive. She swiftly captured a pawn, and soon her opponent’s casualties rose: two knights, two bishops and three pawns.

Her opponent, clad in yellow uniform with matching plastic barrettes, tried to use her queen to fight back, but to no avail. Tahjenique Conner, 8, of Brooklyn, declared checkmate.

That was the scene multiplied by 60 in the atrium of the Sony public plaza this morning on Madison Avenue, where 120 public school students competed in the second annual Cullman Rookie Chess Tournament. For many of the children, age 6 to 10, it was their first official chess competition.

The added tension fortified Tahjenique, who went on to win another round.

“What I like about chess is it’s challenging,” Tahjenique said, slurping on a juice drink during lunch break. “You never know if you’re going to win or lose.”

The Rookie tournament was organized by Chess-in-the-schools, a non-profit that teaches chess to kids across the city. After beginning in just a handful of in schools in 1986, the program has grown to encompass 27,000 children in 109 schools citywide. But its aim isn’t simply to teach chess. Instead, organizers of the program, which teaches the game during the school day as if it were a subject, tout the program’s success in raising the academic level of children who participate.

Alexandre Beltre, the Chess-in-the-Schools vice president, remembers seeing early success.

“The first thing we found out was the kids who started our program were more interested in going to school,” Beltre said. “Their math scores were going through the roof and their reading scores too.”

After a study by Dr. Stuart Margolis, an educational psychologist, showed the program improved kids’ scores on standardized tests, “We had principals calling us and saying ‘We want a chess program,’” Beltre said.

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